Fooling Around
by fashiongirl97
Summary: Pre-Paris. A case takes the team to California where Jenny has to face old memories. But a little fooling around always helps matters Please R&R - jibbs fluff


**Disclaimer – NCIS is not mine**

**Authors note – just a bit of fluff to try and get my muse back **

**Fooling around**

Sometimes we all wonder what exactly it is exactly we want out of life. Those of us who have family want independence, to roam alone through countries. Thos who are alone want to have that support system that only ever a family can provide. People who spend their lives wanting to get that job, spend an eternity wishing they'd paused once or twice to take in the view, and those who did so, wish they'd taken the chances they'd been offered. It doesn't matter what we achieve, where we end up or where we have been, each one of us wants to go back and change something. As a race, as a species, generation upon generation we are never happy with what we have.

Some of us do what we please, follow ambitions and dreams we ourselves have concocted and thought up. Others, they follow and ambition pushed upon them by parent and tradition. Yet there is another group, people who push to get to a place because they think it is their duty, because they think that it is the thing that would made people proud.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs joined the Marines not because of family tradition, but because he was not an academic, and so he went to the Marines to do something that was his duty to his country. Did something that made him feel like he was making a difference. And NCIS followed on from that in suit. Jenny however, she did her law school degree and had her own dreams, things she herself wanted to do. Yet because of her father's death she joined NCIS, and now she was there. Now she sat in that building every day thinking of the reason she was there. Thinking of her own dreams.

The case had been hard; they'd had to travel down from DC to California. Their killer had shot herself in front of their eyes, and each had been covered in blood. Yet as with every suicide, it hit Jenny hard, thinking of her the day, two years after her father's death she had travelled down to where they were now: California and found her mother's hanging body. After two years of mourning, two years that spiralled into a deep and dark depression. A depression, which had consumed the smiling and laughing woman who once had been Jenny's mother.

California was a place she had not visited since that day. When they'd found out that was where they were going, it had taken a lot for her not to turn around and say he would go as tech support and stay in MTAC. But one thing Jenny knew too well was how short life could be, how if you didn't face your fears you could die and never had confronted them. So after a long internal debate she had stepped onto that plane. Jethro's hand ghosting over the base of her spine.

She hadn't wanted to be his lover when she started, hadn't set about to sleep with her boss. But something over the months had drawn them together, and being stuck in that attic, her squealing at spiders and him laughing at her. Sweat soaked clothes sticking to them, and both being a bit cranky. It was there that that line had been crossed. Because whilst teasing one another, when she had stolen to piece of wood he'd bee carving all day. It had ended with her falling onto the mattress in a fit of giggles, with him on top of her. They'd caught one another's eyes, realised their proximity, and it had all boiled down to that one moment. Neither on was sure who had started the kiss looking back, but one of them had. In all of two minutes they had been passionately kissing on another whilst hands indiscreetly and desperately roamed.

Now this was where they were. Coming back to the stated neither had been sure what would happen, yet after a few awkward days they had found that most nights, especially at the end of a case on or the other travelled to the others house. Although they hid it had work, Decker and Burley had soon decided they knew what was happening. Whilst there was resentment at first, and the looming threat of favouritism, now things were just normal. They hid it at work, both knowing the consequences that could be caused by the revelation. However, Stan and Will's knowing meant that when the case was away from DC and the rooms were shared, trying t get in the same room proved a hell of a lot easier.

She sat on the beach, the feeling of the work sand beneath of her, listening to the sound of the crashing waves and watching the sky turn from turquoise, to orange, pink and red. She felt almost more relaxed. Jenny had not told the team about her mother, and Jethro still didn't know about her father, the fact that one day soon she would have the chance to move on and she'd have to make a choice. Every time he kissed her, every time he hugged or made love to her she realised the situation she had caused. One day the time would come when she would not know what choice she would make.

The wind blew gently, her long red hair flowing backwards. He bare feet had sand between the toes and she'd changed from her appropriate work clothes to a pair of pale denim short, frayed and partly ripped, and a baggy green t-shirt that fell off one shoulder. It was comfy and yet she loved it because she was well aware it would drive her lover crazy. The wind caused ripples in her top, and she brushed a stray hair from her eyes.

She felt someone sit down beside her and pass her a bear. She smiled and accepted it. "Thanks." She mumbled as she felt his arm wrap around her waist and pull her closer. She let him, and rested her head on his shoulder before taking a sip of the ice cold beer from h brown glass bottle. Closing her eyes she smiled slightly, thanking him for just being there when she needed it.

Watching the sea from the beech reminded her of when she had found her mother. The police had arrived and banished her from the scene she'd sat of the beech, the night sky lit up thanks to the bright blue and red flashing lights. Listening to the shouting mix with the crash of the sea. Times like this made her wonder what her mother would have thought of her, the woman who was oven shadowed by her successful husband, yet it was her who had raised Jenny when her father had been overseas. She wondered if she would approve of how Jenny planned to spend her life avenging her father, wondered if she had planned on letting Jenny find her, or hoped that the girl would be told by a nice female officer who would hand her a rough white tissue and make her a cup of tea.

"I didn't dream of being a cop." Jenny didn't even realise she'd said it out loud, but with Jethro she knew it didn't matter, even though both of them hid things from one another, they could say anything and not worry about it ever being repeated.

"No? What'd you want to be then?" He asked, as he rested his cheek on her head gently.

"I wanted to be an interior designer, or own my own shop."

"Why'd you do law then."

Jenny just sighed, closed her eyes and answered the only thing that was both truthful and secretive and well. "Life." She answered, and he just kissed her crown, knowing that it was too true. Because life had made him join NCIS as well. Had the people Jenny didn't know of still have been alive he didn't know where he would have been. Teaching maybe, something safe, he was sure of that.

They sat there, drinking their bear and watching the sea. Enjoying the embrace of one another. But silence does not last forever, in fact very few things last forever. Yet their silence and contemplation as broken by laughter as Will and Stan came running down the beach. They were still in their jeans but hurriedly removing their-shirts as they ran into the no doubt freezing sea. Both gasped and laughed. "Come on lover-birds!" Stan shouted as they splashed each other, attempting to dunk the other only to end up falling belly flop style into the waves.

Jenny and Jethro laughed to themselves, just watching. Then he decided he wanted to get her wet. He stood up and held out his hand to her. The moon reflected off of her perfect face, no lines in her young age and she laughed. "No chance are you getting me in that water Gibbs!" She shouted. Yet he had other ideas.

He squealing could be heard as he picked her up bridal style and carried her into the sea. He chucked her in when the water was deep enough. And she emerged, pushing her hair back and laughing. "You are so dead Gibbs!" She shouted and as she swam over and jumped onto his back, trying to push him under, yet he span around so she ended up back underwater.

Decker and Burley watched, laughing at their boss and probie acting so immaturely. Yet the two people who were often so absorbed in their work laughing and having fun came as a relief. Even if it was slightly awkward to watch as Jenny got his top off of him after complaining he was the only man with a top on.

"Get yours off then!" Was his response as his hand found her ass under the water? She simply laughed and shook her head.

"Come on Shep! Top off! Top off!" Shouted Will and Stan.

"Not gonna happen, with you two there'll be a picture on the NCIS bulletin next week!"

Gibbs decided that he could accept that and he didn't want others seeing her topless after all. So they splashed each other, and for a good hour all four of them messed around in the water. Ad whilst Jenny remained topless, t did go slightly opaque and stuck t her which made all the men more than a little happy.

That evening, slightly tipsy, soaking wet and laughing their heads off allowed for California to hold a new memory or Jenny Shepard, and it took a lot of weight off of her shoulders. When the sun was well and truly down and all decided to head in, Stan and Will saw a couple of college girls and Jen and Jethro watched them run off like two eager school boys. Both laughed, and he pulled her in, kissing her forehead. She looked up at him. "You okay?" he questioned.

"Yeah." She said, smiling. "I'm okay now." She stopped them, leant up and kissed him passionately on the lips making him moan. She looked at him and winked, he pulled her closer but she pulled away and began to walked away, swaying her hips. He watched her for a moment before catching her up, slapping her ass, and then chasing her up the beach.

California really did have a whole new meaning behind of it.


End file.
